Emmie Jordan
From:
South Carolina
Project #-1655
Mrs. Genevieve W. Chandler
Murrells Inlet, S. C.
Georgetown County
EX-SLAVE STORY
(Verbatim)
"My old man can 'member things and tell you things and he word carry. We
marry to Turkey Hill Plantation. Hot supper. Cake, wine, and all. Kill
cow, hog, chicken and all. That time when you marry, so much to eat!
Finance wedding! Now--
"We 'lamp-oil chillun'; they 'lectric light' chillun now! We call our
wedding 'lamp-oil wedding'. Hall jam full o' people; out-of-door jam
full. Stand before the chimbley.
"When that first war come through, we born. I don't know just when I
smell for come in the world.
"Big storm? Yinnah talk big storm hang people up on tree? (Noah!) Shake?
I here in house. House gone, 'Rack-a-rack-a-racker!'
"My husband run out--with me and my baby left in bed! Baby just come in
time of the shake.
"When I first have sense, I 'member I walk on the frost bare-feet.
Cow-belly shoe.
"My husband mother have baby on the flat going to Marion and he Auntie
Cinda have a baby on that flat.
"From yout (youth) I been a Brown and marry a Brown; title never change.
"Old timey sing?
1.
"Wish I had a hundred dog
And half wuz hound!
Take it in my fadder field
And we run the rabbit down!
Chorus: Now he hatch
He hatch!
He hatch!
And I run the rabbit down!
2.
"I wish I had a hundred head o' dog
And half of them wuz hound
I'd take 'em back in my bacco field
And run the rabbit down.
Chorus: Now he hatch--he hatch!
He hatch--he hatch!
Now he hatch--he hatch!
And I run them rabbit down!"
"That wuz a sing we used to have on the plantation. Then we make up
sing--we have sing for chillun. Make 'em go sleep. Every one have his
own sing.
"Bye-o-baby!
Go sleepy!
Bye-o-baby!
Go sleepy!
What a big alligator
Coming to catch
This one boy!"
"Diss here the Watson one boy child!
Bye-o-baby go sleepy!
What a big alligator
Coming to catch this one boy!"
Emmie Jordan: "Missus, I too plague with bad heart trouble to give you
the sing!"
Song and conversation Given by
Mom Louisa Brown (Born time of 'Reb people War')
Waverly Mills, S. C.
Near Parkersville, S. C.
Project -1655
Jessie A. Butler
Charleston, S. C.
Approximately 930 words
FOLKLORE
Stories from Ex-slaves
Henry Brown
Ex-slave Age 79
Henry Brown, negro caretaker of the Gibbes House, at the foot of Grove
street, once a part of Rose Farm, is a splendid example of a type once
frequently met with in the South. Of a rich brown complexion, aquiline
of feature, there is none of the "Gullah" about Henry. He is courteous
and kindly in his manner, and speaks more correctly than the average
negro.
"My father was Abram Brown, and my mother's name was Lucy Brown," he
said. "They were slaves of Dr. Arthur Gordon Rose. My grandfather and
grandmother were grown when they came from Africa, and were man and wife
in Africa. I was born just about two years before the war so I don't
remember anything about slavery days, and very little about war times,
except that we were taken to Deer Pond, about half mile from Columbia.
Dr. Rose leased the place from Dr. Ray, and took his family there for
safety. My mother died while he was at Deer Pond, and was buried there,
but all the rest of my people is buried right here at Rose Farm. My two
brothers were a lot older than me, and were in the war. After the war my
brother Tom was on the police force, he was a sergeant, and they called
him Black Sergeant. My brother Middleton drove the police wagon: they
used to call it Black Maria.
"My father, Abram Brown, was the driver or head man at Rose plantation.
Dr. Rose thought a heap of him, and during the war he put some of his
fine furniture and other things he brought from England in my father's
house and told him if the Yankees came to say the things belonged to
him. Soon after that the soldiers came. They asked my father who the
things belonged to and he said they belonged to him. The soldiers asked
him who gave them to him, and he said his master gave them to him. The
Yankees told him that they thought he was lying, and if he didn't tell
the truth they would kill him, but he wouldn't say anything else so they
left him alone and went away.
"Work used to start on the plantation at four o'clock in the morning,
when the people went in the garden. At eight or nine o'clock they went
into the big fields. Everybody was given a task of work. When you
finished your task you could quit. If you didn't do your work right you
got a whipping.
"The babies were taken to the Negro house and the old women and young
colored girls who were big enough to lift them took care of them. At one
o'clock the babies were taken to the field to be nursed, then they were
brought back to the Negro house until the mothers finished their work,
then they would come for them.
"Dr. Rose gave me to his son, Dr. Arthur Barnwell Rose, for a Christmas
present. After the war Dr. Rose went back to England. He said he
couldn't stay in a country with so many free Negroes. Then his son Dr.
Arthur Barnwell Rose had the plantation. Those was good white people,
good white people.
"The colored people were given their rations once a week, on Monday,
they got corn, and a quart of molasses, and three pounds of bacon, and
sometimes meat and peas. They had all the vegetables they wanted; they
grew them in the gardens. When the boats first came in from Africa with
the slaves, a big pot of peas was cooked and the people ate it with
their hands right from the pot. The slaves on the plantation went to
meeting two nights a week and on Sunday they went to Church, where they
had a white preacher Dr. Rose hired to preach to them.
"After the war when we came back to Charleston I went to work as a
chimney-sweep. I was seven years old then. They paid me ten cents a
story. If a house had two stories I got twenty cents; if it had three
stories I got thirty cents. When I got too big to go up the chimneys I
went back to Rose plantation. My father was still overseer or driver. I
drove a cart and plowed. Afterwards I worked in the phosphate mines,
then came back here to take care of the garden and be caretaker. I
planted all these Cherokee roses you see round here, and I had a big
lawn of Charleston grass. I aint able to keep it like I used to."
Henry is intensely religious. He says "the people don't notice God now
because they're free." "Some people say there aint no hell," he
continued, "but I think there must be some kind of place like that,
because you got to go some place when you leave this earth, and you got
to go to the master that you served when you were here. If you serve God
and obey His commandments then you go to Him, but if you don't pay any
attention to what he tells you in His Book, just do as you choose and
serve the devil, then you got to go to him. And it don't make any
difference if you're poor or rich, it don't matter what the milliner
(millionaire) man says."
He seemed so proud of his garden, with its broad view across the Ashley
River, showing his black walnut, pear and persimmon trees, grape vines
and roses, that the writer said, "Henry, you know a poet has said that
we are nearer God in the garden than anywhere else on earth." "Well
ma'am, you see," he replied, with a winning smile, "that's where God put
us in the first place."
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Hagar Brown
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